XHn&er a S)ogwoo& witb /IDontafgne 



which time he was a counselor in the Par- 

 liament of Bordeaux, evidently not with- 

 out distinction. 



Montaigne married at the age of 

 thirty-three. He had seen all sides of life, 

 taken his fill of pleasures, and now he 

 felt the need of rural quietude in which 

 he could nurse his lesions, if not to a cure, 

 at least with great benefit. His elder 

 brothers had died, likewise his father, 

 leaving him the estates and the family 

 title; therefore, in 1571, his thirty-eighth 

 year, already broken physically beyond 

 permanent cure, he went to live at the 

 chateau of Montaigne, where the literary 

 bee, long humming in his bonnet, began to 

 sting him sorely. He sharpened some 

 quills and fell to jotting down his thoughts. 



Montaigne's schooling had been curi- 

 ously literary and dramatic, under the in- 

 fluence of the extreme classicism with 

 which his great contemporary, Ronsard, 

 gave a new brilliance to French poetry ; 

 but the genius of the essayist struck 

 through its academic cocoon and took life 

 at first hand; it used the books of the 

 291 



